Robert Pattinson delights in the sly, archly comic western 'Damsel'

"Damsel" opens against a vast expanse of orange dust and red rock, somewhere in the unsettled American West of the 19th century. The vistas are majestic enough for framing (and cinematographer Adam Stone does the honors nicely), the atmosphere hushed to an almost otherworldly degree. Before long, another beautifully weathered landscape looms into the frame: the face of actor Robert Forster, who plays a world-weary preacher at the end of his tether, awaiting a stagecoach bound for greener pastures.

But even simple mercies prove elusive in these godforsaken parts. The stagecoach doesn't show up and the preacher soon vanishes from